Day 1 – Framtidsmuseet – Science Center Borlänge

After a hearty welcome in the morning of the first day Elisabeth drove us safely to the museum of future. The short introduction of all attendees was followed by a presentation of Triple Steelix and NSCAS. Following lecture about presentation techniques was given by Sarah Ramsey concluding with three things to remember: IBC – introduction – body and close, the main terms of a presentation. After lunch Joakim, a local politician was pitching his idea of a rhetoric approach in presentations, followed by a short introduction of the challenges in R&D in product development by Lars. The final activity of the day was an exciting robot fight with self-programmed Lego robots – that was fun! It was a great team-building event.

Christian & Tuomo

Day 2 – SSAB

Today we visited SSAB, a global company specialized on low-alloyed high strength steels. The tour started with a video of car-crash test, pointing out the importance of safety in automotive business and how high strength steels play a role there. After our presentations, we got the chance to visit two production lines – hot-rolling and continuous annealing lines. One key for SSAB production is achieving better material performance by heat treatment instead of heavy alloying, hence the temperature and timing of processing is rather important. We were fascinated by the well-controlled and highly automated production process starting from slab heating, going through all steps including hot-rolling, quenching, coiling, annealing, till the final packaging. Additionally, in the late afternoon, we were guided to see a traditional Swedish summer house of about five hundred years’ old, which now is a museum telling part of the Swedish history. It was a short trip but a nice compact overview over several hundred years.

Mengji & Lei

Day 3 – OVAKO

Visit at OVAKO, Hofors –Simon LilleHofors –Kjell Johansson

The visit started with a short presentation of Ovako products by Simon Lille, Group R&D Metallurgy. Simon It was interesting to know that Ovako has proud tradition of keeping mills and communities growing together. Ovako is one of the leading companies manufacturing engineering steel products which is different from SSAB making high strength steel. Each companies have their own unique products; we think that is reason why they all succeed. One thing we feel impressive for Ovako is they all produce steel based on recycling scrap, which means they do not mine or import any iron ore.

The plant visit was also exciting to see the working of electric arc furnace with the capacity around 100 tons, using big cylindrical electrodes, and casting of billets which were taken for processing in the large roughing mill and further rolling to obtain rods for the first time. we also witnessed how the scientific principles are applied in industry, like using electromagnets to forklift the huge runner pipes for casting billets and use of low thermal conductivity material in the casting of billet to reduce piping defects. The unique process of Ovako is sand casting, which takes longer time compared to continuous casting. But it is interesting to know that by using this process, they can put inclusions in finished products under control. Since a lots of efforts are taking to deal with the problem of inclusions in continuous casting.

The afternoon was spent with formal presentation and had thought provoking discussions with Ovako R&D staff useful for our research. Both of us gave a long presentation, and had some very valuable feedback’s during poster discussion section, which give us a sense on the difference between academic research and industrial practice.
The evening was historic with visit to oldest open cast mine (Struttgruvan) dating back to Christ era in Hofors mountain and learned how the miners used to burn the woods and cracked the rocks to make the mine. The legend of mine lady knocking the rocks to warn the miners was quite interesting. It rained heavily during the day but could not dampen our hosts spirits as we also had the opportunity to see the first open hearth furnace in the woods.

Rajinikanth and Kenny

Day 4 – Outokumpu

We went to Outokumpu today, a global leading stainless steel manufacturer. The trip started with meeting the R&D department of the company. Besides our presentations, we got an insight of the current market and products of the company, as well as how industrial research works as compared to the academic. We also got an opportunity to visit the steel plants. Although the manufacturing process was not working due to regular maintenance, we had a complete tour around with detailed technical explanations, starting with arc melting furnace, going through converter, ladle furnaces and continuous casting, hot-rolling, annealing, pickling, cold-rolling till the final finishing lines. Besides, we were also given an introduction on the history of the company and the town, including the iron-making and copper refining. A historic plant is now well used as an art museum, where artists worldwide have exhibitions.

Best,Mengji & Abhinav

Day 5 – ABB

We started early in the morning to visit ABB in Vasteras. After a small “fika“ at the cooperate research center, researchers of ABB introduced us quickly into their research activities and their cooperation’s with the local university. Following the NSCAS members presented held oral / poster presentations which were followed by lively discussions with the ABB members about its topics. After lunch we got a tour through the research labs in the cooperate research center and at a ABB Metallurgy factory site focusing on electromagnetic stirring, failure analysis, additive manufacturing (3D printing of metals), water models of EAF and casting, and a very exciting 3D interactive display of different sections of plant. The day ended with a tour through the “Expectrum“ a center for interaction of the community with science , a great place to get together. Closed by the dinner was carried out sponsored by the city of Vasteras – tasty!

On Tuesday we had a more science-oriented seminar organized by Triple Steelix at Dalarna University. We expected that there would be more deep discussion on our research topics and steel technology in general. Elisabeth Dahlstedt opened the day and emphasized the role of NSCAS in focusing on attractiveness and competence for the Swedish steel industry. After short welcoming words by the Dean, the seminar opened with presentations by NSCAS Alumnis, which were quite interesting, especially application oriented wear testing and press hardening of automotive steels by Niko and Henri of Tampere University of Technology. This was followed by presentations by NSCAS PhD students. The presentation on finite element simulation of manufacturing process by Prof. Lars Erik Lindgren of Luleå University was very useful to our research work. We also learned about the role of CFD in simulating the process of slab reheating furnace from Lokman Husein of Malardalen University. The mechanism of cemented carbide tool wear during rock drilling and metal cutting by Prof. Mikael Olsson of Dalarna University was good to know. We were also excited to learn about the different physically based models for plastic deformation from Prof. Göran Engberg and the importance of modeling in solving industrial problems. It was nice to get help from Sarah Ramsey of Dalarna University on presentation technique and doubtless very useful for our future research careers.

The day started with leaving Vassbo and going to Sandviken. In Sandviken we visited Sandvik company. Vice President R&D of Sandvik along with other colleagues gave us a warm welcome to their hi-tech head office. He introduced us to the company in short and informative presentation which was followed by presentation of our research work. After a sumptuous lunch, we got an opportunity to visit melting, continuous casting, hot rolling and extrusion plants of the company. Detailed discussion with technical personnel gave us an insight about the various processes being carried out there. In addition to that we had a guided tour to the place from where Sandvik had actually originated.
It was quite surprise to us that Sandvik has been working on fuel cell for very long time, and has started a pilot project together with Sandviken municipality to bring fuel cell vehicle to the community. This shows Swedish companies are very visionary, innovative and willing take risk.